Socio-Economic Aspects of Chalcolithic (4500-3500 BC) Societies in the Southern Levant

This work summarizes a techno-typological analysis of Chalcolithic (c. 4500-3500 B.C.) lithic assemblages from the Southern Levant (sites from Israel, the Golan heights, the Jordan valley, Southern and eastern Jordan and eastern and north-eastern Sinai). This period witnessed major changes in the lifestyles of inhabitants in this region, representing the peak of a long development in rural life, a process that started with first Neolithic villages and ended up in the Early Bronze Age period, with the establishment of first towns. All accessible assemblages dated to the above mentioned period have been studied in the laboratory. More than 200,000 flint artefacts were included in this work, among them c. 20,000 tools, the rest being equally divided between debris and debitage.